


Children's rights

by Amaru_Katari



Series: Gryffindor tie(s) [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:58:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaru_Katari/pseuds/Amaru_Katari
Summary: Children deserve rights that cater to their own distinctive status and particular requirements.Or: In which Dudley Dursley wishes he had never met Harry Potter.





	Children's rights

Dudley Dursley was not a really intelligent boy, and if he was a little less angry about that fact he would be the first to recognize it. The gist of the matter was that he was not a genius, but he could very well understand things, sometimes even the complicated ones, like the fact that he was left without his cousin while he was playing in the beach.

His cousin, the eternal constant in his home, gone.

He could say that he was sad, but that would be a big lie. True, he felt like his knees became jelly and his stomach made a good impression of being made of ice when he received the news, and he totally cried in a way he had thought was very girly afterwards, but he was not sure of the cause.

Dudley and his parents had reached their house that Sunday night and had been welcomed by police lights and ambulances, and all was very exciting (it was like they were some kind of national heroes being welcomed after winning a war) until they were told that Harry was in the ambulance (and here Dudley had thought that Harry had been crying _again_ , and that this time some neighbor had heard him and made a fuss) and that Dudley’s parents were required to accompany some agent or other, and that Dudley was supposed to go talk with some lady, and everything after that was a rush of movement and sound that he couldn’t completely follow.

His mum had asked what Harry had done this time, that they could take care of it, and that nobody should worry about what a little liar like him said: ‘ _he is in Saint Brutus, after all’_ , and the police guy and the big bald detective that accompanied him had looked at her the same funny way his Math teacher looked at Dudley every time he said that he didn’t care about numbers because his parents had money.

They talked then in hushed tones, his parents looking paler with each passing second, and when a lady came towards him and took his shoulder, his mum started screaming that they couldn’t take him away, but she couldn’t move past the officers and he was soon left with the lady and the memory of his mother screeching and trying to kick the agents in their front yard and in the presence of their neighbors.

And now he was here. In Piers’ house, trying to come to terms with everything whilst Piers tried to overheard the lady (who was, according to his friend, from Children Services) talking with Mr. and Mrs. Polkiss.

Amanda, the lady, seemed very nice, and had sat beside him, told him everything in a very simple way and had even hugged him when he started crying.

He couldn’t tell her that he didn’t know why he was crying. That he didn’t feel anything towards Harry, and that his memories of him consisted mostly of him making fun of his abnormalities. He couldn’t even tell her that in reality he felt somewhat relieved that Harry had taken a way out of their lives, because he (Harry) would never again do _magic_ against him or have one of his friends do it (he still shuddered every time he saw a fur coat), and Dudley would never _ever_ fear the day Harry would be allowed to do his freakish things outside his freakish school.

He felt like he was free.

“Hey, Dud” whispered Piers, tiptoeing from the top of the stairs towards the room he was in “That lady says that your parents are going to jail!”

“What? Why?”

“She says is because they negle… they did something to your cousin”

“And me? What about me?!”

“Dunno” Piers shrugged and scratched his head “But that lady says that your dad said that your aunt told him to do things to your cousin and she’s also going to be investigated”

“Oh”

“So, you’re going to stay with us!”

“Fine”

“Is going to be fun! My parents gave me that new Nintendo console that you have, and we can bunk together and play until is late!”

“Fine Piers”

“Don’t be a bore, Dud” huffed Piers, irritated “You told me that you wished something like this happened”

“Shut up Piers”

And Piers effectively shut up, but also pursed his lips and marched stiffly outside the room.

Alone, finally, but in the guest room of one of his friends and in the aftermath of what Amanda had told him was a ‘very traumatic event’, Dudley thought that he preferred to deal with his fears than the uncertainty of his future.

It was all Harry’s fault.

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, in this story, Dudley is very willing to put all blame in Harry because it's easier, and also because he couldn't see that something that he had grown up seeing as "normal" was, in fact, very wrong, and leaded to Harry's death. He's a very spoiled child, raised to see Harry as the enemy, and whose only experiences with magic were negative. I guess that, in those circunstances, Harry's death would be seen as a reprieve, but, as it came to a cost in Dudley's part, it was still a bad thing that Harry had propiciated. 
> 
> For this story's sake, I put Dudley in the Polkiss' house. I know it wouldn't be that way, but let's say that CS thought it better to put Dudley in a familiar place at least for the night, because extenuating circumstances. Maybe he would stay there until his parents were held to court, maybe because Amanda took his meltdown as a sign of much needed familiarity, and after that he would be put full time in the tender mercies of the gubernamental machinery. I guess that once he's out of his family influence, and under psychological treatment, Dudley could become a better person, and be able to recognize that there was something very wrong in the way in which Harry was treated, even if he could never simpatize with his cousin.
> 
> Piers, on the other hand, couldn't care less. Harry Potter was an afterthought, and sometimes not even human, so his death didn't really affected him.
> 
> When I wrote this I was very, very mad at my own cousins. You see, we had just come from my uncle's wake, and their only thoughts were for their respective partners and food. I was mad, I wrote this, and then went to sleep. Months passed, they... refused to comunicate with the rest of their paternal family (meaning my family), and I thought that it was part of the shock and duel that distanciated us. Now, it turns out that they blame us for my uncle's death, because aparently we wouldn't lend them the money for the debt they had (mind you, that debt could have been enought to buy a flat and a car in my country, not to mention that we are a middle class family, in third world country, and that the debt was caused because my cousin went to Europe FOR A MONTH, and my other cousin wanted to study in a University in which the tuition costs TEN times what mine does... Sorry, I'm so angry), and now, they refuse to even mention my uncle, saying that everything they have is because of their mother (the woman who landed my uncle's ass in jail for fraud, and the same person who told my cousins to "follow their dreams" at the cost of my uncle's sanity)
> 
> Ugh.
> 
> Anyway, I thought I was over this bouts of rage, but it seems I'm not. 
> 
> Thank you for reading (and if you got to this part, you, my friend, are a saint), and please, I'm not a native speaker, if you notice any typo, let me know.


End file.
